The relationship between entrepreneurs and status: social- versus commercial entrepreneurs

Abstract The role of status as a determinant of entrepreneurship is a rather unexplored area of literature. Recently, there are more theoretical and empirical contributions to this area of literature (Malach-Pines et al., 2005; Parker and Van Praag, 2009; Van Praag, 2009; Liñán et al, 2011). These researchers suggest that status influences the intentions to become an entrepreneur and that the perceived status of high-tech entrepreneurs in a country is correlated with entrepreneurial activity in that particular country. This thesis will investigate the relationship between perceived entrepreneurial status and the preference for entrepreneurship. It will also test the relationship between perceived entrepreneurial status and having experience as an entrepreneur. This thesis makes also a distinguish between entrepreneurs and tests if individuals who perceive entrepreneurs as having a high status are less likely to be a social entrepreneur than a commercial entrepreneur. This is done by using the dataset of the Flash Eurobarometer survey on Entrepreneurship (No. 283) which contains information of more than 26,000 individuals of 36 countries. The results of the binary logistic regression models provide evidence that individuals are more likely to have a preference for entrepreneurship if they perceive entrepreneurs as having a high status. Furthermore, this thesis finds evidence that individuals are more likely to have experience as an entrepreneur if they perceived entrepreneurial as having a high status